In recent months, South Africa has been experiencing a wave of xenophobia, as real unemployment has remained near 50% and a desperate population strikes for quick solutions to complex problems. Easy targets of this rage come from illegal migrants from neighboring Zimbabwe and Mozambique; but Ghanaians, Nigerians and “Asians” in general have also come under fire, according to Human Rights Watch. All this is occurring in an environment fueled by President Donald Trump’s racist “Save the Persecuted White Farmers” meme attacking the South African government.
In Nigeria, President Bola Tinubu seized on the issue of the attacks, and offered to accept returnees from South Africa. As the list quickly rose to near one thousand, Nigeria welcomed the first flight of 200-some “victims” home on June 11, but the project stalled when South Africa’s Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) stopped funding the flights. Flights have since resumed, now funded by Nigeria’s Air Peace.
As all this xenophobia was exploding on social media, a post appeared on X June 23 which asserted that Nigeria had put $61 billion into “South Africa’s struggle against apartheid.” The post— by Kenyan Pan-African @MrJamesKe— had been viewed (as of this writing) nearly 400,000 times, with 1,000 viewers tagging it “relevant.”
